Cold, cold memories warm the hearts of the Braves

What with the weather and all, it's likely some hometown Kamiakin fans will miss the Class 3A state championship football game at the Tacoma Dome today.

But also, what with the weather and all, the Kamiakin Braves won't need any reminders of just how enthusiastic their fans really are.

After all, coaches and their families, players and their families, students and their families, and fans and their families turned out the day before Thanksgiving in defiance of the weather to clear Lampson Field of its thick coating of snow and ice.

Remember the day before Thanksgiving? It was cooold.

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The high, according to the weatherman, was 15, following an overnight low of negative 7.

The reason for the effort to clear the field was to lift spirits. There were backup fields, but those players, fans and coaches wanted the Braves to have home-field advantage when they played Olympia's Capital Cougars in the semi-finals.

And it paid off.

As Kevin Anthony wrote in the Herald of that game, "On a cold and snowy Saturday afternoon at Lampson Stadium, the Braves needed every penny of their treasury to fight off the Capital Cougars and punch their ticket to Tacoma."

The game ended in a rout, 45 to 18 the final score.

"Amazing," defensive end Jon Allen told Anthony, "We knew we could do this. We knew we could get this far. The work paid off. We did it."

For just the second time in the Kamiakin program's history, the team plays in a state championship game.

They face Bellevue, the defending champions and a genuine powerhouse.

And although they won't have the home-field advantage that their fans worked so hard to procure for them in the semi-finals, they won't have to worry about snow, either, unless it finds a way to get through the roof of the Tacoma Dome.

The game will be broadcast at 4 p.m. on FSN and rebroadcast on the same station at 10:30 p.m.

Even though not as many Kamiakin fans will be able to show up for the championship game as were there for the semi-finals, there should still be a solid rooting section for the Braves.

And the team members might be warmed and strengthened by the memory of so many fans facing so much work and so much cold to help get the team where it is.